4 480 Annali d Italianistica 29 (2011) dominated Friuli literary production in the volgare, but later developed around the Società di agricoltura pratica. The historic region of Carniola is the focus of Maria Pirjavec s Academia Operosorum di Lubiana ( ). Founded by the members of the local nobility schooled in Italy who had joined academies such as the Gelati of Bologna, this academy was notable for scientific, rather than literary, interests. Isabella Flego s Accademie e associazioni culturali a Capodistria e dintorni (Il Settecento) views the history of the city s learned societies through the life and works of two leading intellectuals: Girolamo Gravisi and Gian Rinaldo Carli. Unable to reform the Accademia dei Risorti, they established the short-lived Accademia degli Operosi, only to find themselves having returned from their studies in Padua heading the Risorti. While Carli later moved away from Illuminismo, Gravisi and the Risorti continued their interest in ideas of Beccaria, Rousseau and others. Central for Flego is the rich and rewarding relationship between Gravisi and Carli, and the role they played in the development of life in the region. She does not neglect their contemporaries: violinist Giuseppe Tartini, physician Giovanni Gironcoli, and others. Olive cultivation as object of study in 18th-century Istria is the topic of Kristjan Knez s L olivicoltura negli interessi delle Accademie Istriane al tramonto della Serenissima. Knez looks at the shift, encouraged by Venetian authorities, in many academies intellectual focus towards agricultural research. Prompted by the extreme weather that in the late 18th century affected Istrian olive production, this shift also happened because many members of the nobility active in the academies were landowners. Gian Rinaldo Carli and his brief marriage to the heiress Paolina Fubbi, one of the most accomplished women of the Istrian Settecento, are in the center of Elis Deghenghi Olujić s Un ritratto d autore. Il poligrafo Gianrinaldo Carli nell Ereditiera veneziana di Fulvio Tomizza. The novel reveals its author s ambivalence towards Carli, reflecting Tomizza s struggle with mid-life, and his admiration for Fubbi and her being spared the tormented reflection of maturity afflicting both Carli s and Tomizza s own lives. In L erudizione artistica e antiquaria in Friuli fra Sette e Ottocento, Paolo Pastres sees the flourishing of archeology and art history in the Friuli as largely the work of members of religious orders, and greatly influenced thereby. Sergio Tavano s Accademie a Gorizia nel Settecento sketches the town s cultural societies (the most noted being the Arcadia Romano-Sonziaca founded by Giuseppe de Coletti), born from the cosmopolitanism of Gorizia s aristocracy and plurilinguism. De Coletti returns in Michela Messina s Giuseppe de Coletti e il contributo dell Arcadia Romano-Sonziaca alla nascita del Civico Museo di Antichità di Trieste, describing the origins and nature of objects he donated to Trieste. Essays by Marzia Vidulli Torlo ( Il contributo della Collezione della Società di Minerva alla nascita del Civico Museo di Antichità di Trieste ),

5 Italian Bookshelf 481 Antonella Cosenzi ( L Archivio della Società di Minerva: la sua storia presso i Civici Musei di Storia ed Arte ) and Lorenza Resciniti ( Il dono del 26 febbraio 1938 ai Civici Musei di Storia ed Arte di Trieste ) offer useful insight into the origins of Trieste s museum collections. The first gifts by the Minerva Society to the city, says Vidulli Torlo, date to 1874, with an important role played by Pietro Kandler. Cosenzi s essay examines various implications of the Fascist regime s 1930s decision to transfer all historical and art objects from the Minerva Society to the museums. Resciniti analyzes the relationship between Minerva and museums, from the first gifts to the ventennio fascista. La Società Istriana di Archeologia e Storia Patria by Giuseppe Cuscito recalls that 2009 marks 125 years from the foundation of the archeological society of Parenzo/Poreč, 100 years from the founding of the Deputazione di Storia Patria per Friuli, and 80 years from the establishment of the Associazione Nazionale per Aquileia all of them moved by a strong impegno civile (221). In I novant anni della Deputazione di Storia Patria per il Friuli, Giuseppe Bergamini examines repercussions of the region s political turbulence on this association and its membership. In Tra cultura dei Lumi e Risorgimento morale e civile: la Società di Minerva, Fulvio Salimbeni delineates the historical context of Napoleonic and Austrian reforms marking thebirth of the Minerva Society in Although the Risorgimento was then not yet a political concept, its origins are in the patriottismo municipale era (239) of the Napoleonic years. Elvio Guagnini s I Passatempi letterari al Gabinetto di Minerva examines the 1812 publication by the Minervali, from its Pindaric odes, parodies, rime d occasione, to novels and letters in verse, poetry in German and the Triestine dialect. Simone Volpato s Gelosie librarie. Giuseppe de Coletti, Domenico Rossetti e la fondazione di due biblioteche pubbliche da Gorizia a Trieste analyzes the decline of the old-style accademia and the rise of the new kind, and the new mission of the public library. Tamara Gentile s M. A. thesis, Legatura del libro quattrocentesco della Biblioteca Civica di Trieste. La collezione Petrarchesca Piccolominea di Domenico Rossetti, treats bookbinding, paying homage to the founder of the Minerva, whose private library was moved, after his death in 1842, to the Biblioteca Civica. K. E. Bättig von Wittelsbach, Cornell University Eamonn Canniffe. The Politics of the Piazza: The History and Meaning of the Italian Square. Hampshire: Ashgate, Pp In The Politics of the Piazza, Eamonn Canniffe explores the influence that politics played in creating architectural spaces in Italy. There is a particular

6 482 Annali d Italianistica 29 (2011) focus on the piazza as a public space, but also on other architectural designs that gave way to public spaces. Canniffe s argument centers on the relationship between various political regimes, and their influence on creating and transforming public spaces in relation to urbanism. Starting from the Etruscans to present day society, the historical perspective incorporates many of the political and architectural developments of the time. The Politics of the Piazza goes beyond the external relationship of politics and architecture to explore present day themes such as biopolitics how political regimes sought to control populations through urban design. What becomes apparent in Canniffe s research is that the piazza is another name for an iconographic art form that has always communicated certain ideas to its populace. It is within these subliminal messages that one arrives at a deeper understanding of politics and cultural norms. Canniffe explores these topics placing fourteen chapters into the following four parts: the roots of Italian urban form, the early modern city, the city and national consciousness, and urban expression in an age of uncertainty. In the first part, Canniffe gives readers a point of reference in early architectural design in delineating the lasting influence that Greek, Etruscan, and Roman civilizations had on public spaces. He explains the importance of examining urbanism in ancient civilizations through their conception of the world that consisted of religious views of the natural and physical world. Roman representation of public space stemmed largely from the previous two civilizations as the Romans used the same method of the celestial order to determine construction of new cities. Canniffe points to the Forum Romanum and Forum of Trajan to demonstrate this lasting influence of antiquity (21). The rise of Christianity, after the collapse of the western Roman empire, gave way to new motifs in architectural design and public space. The formation of the longitudinal Christian basilica, the baptistery, and the surrounding public spaces for overflow took place around 300 A.D (37). Canniffe highlights the political and religious instability of the time, which had a direct relationship on the construction of new places of worship. Often, they were constructed in enclosed spaces, and attention was placed on interior design as seen in the Basilica of San Marco in Venice and Sant Ambrogio in Milan. The interior of these architectural spaces represented the sacred, and through time the politicization and hierarchy of the church took place with the use of walls, porticoes, and other divisions that aided in defining the Christian hierarchy (40). By the Middle Ages, the political landscape of the Italian peninsula consisted of city-states in the North, the Papacy in the center, and monarchial rule in the South. The political schism created by the Ghibellines and Guelphs provided a constant competition for political and territorial control. This competition between territories led to unique architectural structures that would set apart competing city-states. Canniffe argues that the geographic position and political stability contributed to certain kinds of public spaces. For instance, in Padua, the Republic had a close relationship to the populace and erected

7 Italian Bookshelf 483 structures that were inviting. An example can be seen at the Palazzo della Ragione in Padua, which had the communal space next to the market. Cities that tended to have political strife designed civic edifices around enclosed areas located in geographically strategic areas; those that did not have a geographic advantage over their enemies designed municipal buildings with huge piazzas and watch towers as a way to protect the city and to separate social activities from political duties (56). In part two, Canniffe focuses on three aspects humanism, representation of the ideal, and linear perspective and how they anchored Renaissance urbanism until the end of the Baroque period (76). One of the most notable political changes during this period relates to the influence of the dynastic court. Powerful people, such as the Medici and Pope Nicholas V, advanced the humanistic agenda and dictated the path of urbanism where it had been previously accomplished by free republics. Piazza della Santissima Annunziata in Florence and Piazza della Loggia in Brescia are two examples the author focuses on because of their use of geometric shapes as a way to revive classical themes of cosmology and the ideal. In the third section, the debate turns to the onset of the scientific revolution that scrutinized previous architectural ideas and advocated rational forms of construction. Also, the field of archeology gained popularity and established a relationship between the ancient and modern world (153). Europe experienced dramatic changes during the nineteenth century because of industrialization and the mass movement of people that put into question a national architecture. After the Risorgimento, it became important to create not only a unified culture but also a unified architectural language that would seek to rival other Europe nations. By the nineteenth century, public spaces were designed with a sense of grandeur that was the marvel of other nations, and Piazza del Duomo and the Galleria in Milan were the quintessential examples. The erection of these two public spaces brought together the use of glass, cast-iron technology, and a dome that was elongated into an under-crossing that symbolized in many ways a national destiny (173). The close relationship between architecture and national identity continued until the fall of Fascism. Political regimes, whether it was the monarchy of the Savoy or the authoritarianism of Mussolini, sought to create from above a kind of national identity. The concluding section of Canniffe s work takes a look at the present day use of the piazza by examining what messages are being communicated. After the fall of Fascism, the piazza underwent a slow process of transformation. In many ways, it represented a mirror into the past, clinging to various vestiges that defined urbanism for the past several hundred years. One major change that affected the piazza occurred because of Italy s economic and cultural position since the 1980s (252). The piazza has become a public space for both political and commercial advertisement, and the topology of public spaces now communicates through the visual images of billboards, walls, and posters of

10 486 Annali d Italianistica 29 (2011) altre discipline che vogliano occuparsi dei rapporti tra quelle discipline e la letteratura. Giusy Di Filippo, University of Wisconsin, Madison Journal of Italian Translation 4.2 (Fall 2009). Ed. Luigi Bonaffini. Pp Journal of Italian Translation 5.1 (Spring 2010). Ed. Luigi Bonaffini. Pp The copious assortment of contributions included in the two latest issues of the Journal of Italian Translation provide a fresh and stimulating overview of some of the most seductive projects happening in the arena of English and Italian literary translation. Both issues feature a vast and varied collection of literary works with their facing-page translation, each preceded by a succinct biography of the authors and the translators involved. In some cases, texts are also introduced by a brief blurb, laying out the theoretical framework employed and justifying the translator s approach. Contributions comprise poetry, fiction, and drama not only contemporary pieces but also classics and there appear translations from and into various Italian dialects, including Sardinian, Sicilian, and Neapolitan. In addition, each issue opens with an essay on a specific translation-related theme, and closes with a number of critical reviews of recently published translations. Essays and reviews literally frame the series of translations included in the journal, complementing creative work with a robust scientific component. Note worthily, each Journal issue contains a series of images reproducing the works by one visual artist. Pictures are preceded by a synthetic yet illuminating bio, which introduces the artworks to readers. In this way, each volume resembles a monograph, despite the variety of the materials contained. Such diversity of contents composes a literary symphony. The plain graphics of the journal, which displays source text and translation face to face, allows readers to enjoy each piece attentively, paying attention to linguistic and stylistic details with effortless pleasure. Visual simplicity, which leaves ample room to the whiteness of the page and to the reader s eyes, has the key effect of conveying the reader s attention to the very text. The Fall 2009 issue begins with a captivating essay by Alessandra Calvani. Her paper focuses on the link between women and translation, and discusses, in particular, Giustina Renier Michiel s Italian translation of Shakespeare published at the end of the eighteenth century. The essay introduces Renier s work from a twofold perspective. Not only does Calvani discuss the relationship between women and translation by referring to the long diatribe on translation as a secondary thus female activity, but she also emphasizes the key role that women translators played in history, more often without being able to publish under their real names. Renier s exemplum is presented as paradigmatic. Her

11 Italian Bookshelf 487 translation of Shakespeare is scarcely acknowledged, yet was crucial in fostering the appreciation of the English bard in Italy. Among the English translations of Italian authors featured in this issue, Alexander Booth s rendition of Sandro Penna s poems deserves special attention. Booth aptly plays with punctuation and sounds so as to render the troubled suavity of the source. Another notable attempt is Marc Alan Di Martino s translation of Mario Dell Arco s Romanesque poems. As illustrated in Di Martino s introduction, one of the hardest tasks has been to render the bittersweet, almost jaded stance, a hallmark of the Roman attitude towards life (and death) (IV, 2, 45), which informs Dell Arco s poetry. These texts are quite demanding of the translator s imagination and skills; however, the challenge has been taken up by the translator with force and taste. A series of excerpts from Dacia Maraini s Un sonno senza sogni, translated into English by Anne Milano Appel, livens up the Journal with vivid dynamism. Masterpieces of control are also N. S. Thompson s English renditions of Andrea Ghibellini s poetry and Giampiero W. Doebler s translation of Mara Cini s verses. Doebler, in particular, distinguishes himself for his cleverness in reproducing the graphics of the original, juggling words and verses with admirable care. Last but not least, Mario Mastrangelo s self-translation of Il senso negato and Luigi Bonaffini s inspirational interpretation of Walt Whitman s Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking, translated into a fluidly solid Italian, are also worthy of interest. The Spring 2010 volume opens with a fascinating essay by Laura Stoppan on Mario Luzi critico e traduttore di Mallarmé. The dialogue between the two poets lasted for decades and profoundly influenced Luzi s work, nourishing him with ideas and reflections. Stoppan s paper includes a well-chained selection of quotations from Luzi, who comments upon Mallarmé s work and its impact onto his own poetry. The central part of the essay contains Luzi s translation of the sonnet Ses purs ongles très haut dédiant leur onyx, which Luzi elongates and spreads onto the page as if to express a sense of philosophical rapture. Stoppan offers profuse examples of Luzi s ability to play with sounds and signs an ability rooted in his insightful intimacy with Mallarmé s poetics. Arguably, one of the most remarkable contributions is the English translation of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti s teatro futurista created by Gianluca Rizzo and Dominic Siracusa. The nine short pieces include Il contratto, Donna + amici = fronte, Bianca e Rosso, La scienza e l ignoto, Il regalo, published during the twenties. Another classic in translation is Giacomo Leopardi, whose Canti are elegantly and rigorously rendered by Joseph Tusiani. Tusiani uses every tool he possesses to come up with an English text that can stand next to the original, with mesmerizing results. In the Journal of Italian Translation, translations, essays and critical texts compose an organically balanced texture an ecosystem of languages and literatures in progress that encourages understanding and enjoyment. In Mara

12 488 Annali d Italianistica 29 (2011) Cini s words (IV, 2, 124), compleanno d oggetti / produce mutazioni / analoghe a / luoghi amici / sostituisce rapide / densità / non più fedeli / all antica collezione ( the birthday of objects / produces changes / analogous to / friendly places / substituting rapid / densities / no longer faithful / to the ancient collection, translated by Gianpiero Doebler) (IV, 2, 125). Margherita Zanoletti, The University of Sydney Laboratoire italien. Politique et société 8 (2008). Géographie et politique au début de l âge modern. Ed. Paolo Carta and Romain Descendre. Lyon: CERPPI (ENS) and Dipartimento di scienze giuridiche dell Università di Trento, Pp Under the direction of Paolo Carta of the University of Trento, and Jean-Louis Fournel from the University of Paris VIII, Laboratoire italien. Politique et société takes a fresh approach to Italy. Setting aside traditional practices of idealization that often filter the image of that nation, the annual journal considers Italy in its role as a center of political experimentation. The November 2008 edition of the journal, Géographie et politique au début de l âge moderne, demonstrates the rewards of this approach. Six thematic essays each in its own way, as we learn from abstracts provided at the end of the issue give a nod to the ideal of Renaissance Italy, then move on to elaborate the specifically geographical consciousness that marked early modern thought of both Italians and Europeans thinking about Italy. The introductory essay, jointly authored by Carta and Romain Descendre, lays out the trajectory that would link geography and politics in the early modern period. Geopolitics in this period took Machiavelli s concept of the earth as a static surface, etched all over by the forces of human aggression, and transformed it into a multi-dimensional and dynamic web of parts. As the essays chosen for this special issue argue, only state interests successfully joined those disparate parts to shape a new concept of the world. Though the issue concerns itself with the attempt of Europeans, and particularly of Italians, to accommodate information from the great voyages to the New World, we catch glimpses in several essays of modifications in the European image of the known other worlds of the Ancients and of Asia. This conceptual revision of otherness and its entailment of relativism mark the early modern period. The essays selected for the special edition have captured that distinctive characteristic. In Politica e grandi scoperte geografiche. Alcuni aspetti e problemi, the lengthiest essay of the collection, Mario Pozzi weighs the influence of travel writing by Columbus, Vespucci, Verrazano and Magellan, among others, on monarchs and statesmen, whose political agility was challenged by the nature of

13 Italian Bookshelf 489 New World discoveries. How could state interests best instrumentalize those discoveries? Pozzi offers Portugal as an example of statesmen making rapid calculations based on travel writing. That relatively small nation quickly saw that colonization would drain its human resources, and opted instead to shore up and maintain its monopoly on trade relations. In addition to its insights into the causal nature of geopolitics in the early modern period, this essay provides a valuable study of travel writing as the bridge between governing elites, educated in traditional ideals of Renaissance humanism, and highly skilled cadres of marine entrepreneurs, knowledgeable in the practice of exploring the unknown. Romain Descendre s essay L Arpenteur et le peintre. Métaphore, géographie et invention chez Machiavel, Jean-Marc Besse s contribution, Quelle géographie pour le prince chrétien? Premières remarques sur Antonio Possevino, and Jean-Louis Fournel s perceptive study Quand un Italien pensait le monde: géosophie, géoprophétie et géopolitique chez Tommaso Campanella all offer nuanced portraits of early modern thinkers attempting to reconcile their personal understanding of a changed world with institutions struggling to control individual thought. The subjects of the portraits Machiavelli, Besse, and Campanella are perhaps better known for conflicted relationships with institutions that resisted their critiques, but these essays go beyond conflicts to foreground the tenacity and intellectual commitment, of critics at a time when thinking beyond the frontiers of established ideas cost more dearly than we in contemporary times often recognize. Paolo Carta, the historian of Renaissance political thought, studies the role of the early modern papal nunciate in I cartografi della cristianità. Geografia e politica nelle nunziature apostoliche. Diplomats in service to the Church had not only to protect the temporal interests of the Pontificate; they had also to advance the mission of establishing the universal Church, and this in the contexts of New World discoveries and the pressure of the Reformation in Europe. Highly polished records of ambassadorial experience such as Guicciardini s Ricordi present a coherent image of a diplomat s observations and conduct. But the correspondence of a nuncio conveys a different view of the diplomat s experience. His descriptions of cities and states, his exchanges with the papal office, and his personal observations provide a map of the far more dynamic, far less predictable journey of the Church through early modern political struggles. Three documentary studies enrich the essays. Manuela Bragagnolo examines anew the geopolitical consciousness of a little-studied intellectual of the sixteenth century in Geografia e politica nel Cinquecento. La descrizione di città nelle carte di Gian Vincenzo Pinelli. Born in Naples in 1535 to a family of Genovese origin, Pinelli established himself in Padua, building a library that included works on the Church Index, and attending to a circle that welcomed Tasso, Galileo and Possovino, among other daring thinkers of the time. Rosanna Gorris-Camos follows Machiavelli s French translator through the diffusion of

14 490 Annali d Italianistica 29 (2011) Machiavellian thought in sixteenth-century France. Dans le Labyrinthe de Gohory, lecteur et traducteur de Machiavel is an attentive study of Gohory s role in this process, beginning with his translation of the first book of the Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio, published in Pierre Musitelli s discussion L Archivio Verri: réorganisation récente et perspectives éditoriales retraces the history of the archives belonging to the Verri family, members of the Milanese nobility. Initiated in the fifteenth century, the collection was enriched in the second half of the eighteenth century by the personal papers of the brothers Pietro and Alessandro Verri. The archives were subsumed into collections of subsequent heirs, repeatedly reorganized before an inventory process begun in 1981 by the Fondazione Mattioli, and now made available for scholarly study. The archive offers a rich resource for historians of Milan, Lombardy, and family heritage practices in Italy. Laboratoire italien fills a gaping hole in Italian studies, offering a crossdisciplinary view of Italy that plumbs the depth of its culture and spans the breadth of its influence over time. But the publication also creates a whole new manner of observing Italy. More than a place, more than a collectivity, Italy has become, in this journal, a complex interplay of the social, economic, cultural, and even ethnic interests that continually express themselves in the nation s political experiments. This is the Italy many of us have been waiting for. Susan L. Rosenstreich, Dowling College Francesco Lanza. Sicilian Mimes: A Gallery of Sly and Rustic Tales. Ed. and trans. Gaetano Cipolla. New York: Legas, Pp Francesco Lanza was born in Valguarnera, in the province of Enna in He attended secondary school in Catania, studied law in Rome, was interested in literature, and served as an artillery officer during WWI. Lanza wanted to improve the lot of Sicilian peasants, collaborated with Giuseppe Lombardo Radice to improve rural Sicilian education, and formed an arm of the Socialist party in Valguarnera. Lanza also wrote theatrical pieces. He began to publish the Storie di Nino Scardino in He founded a journal and collaborated as a journalist, but his writing career was cut short; he died when he was barely 35. Cipolla notes that interest in Lanza is growing and his contribution to Italian letters is being reevaluated. The author has a website at As Gaetano Cipolla, the editor of this book of Sicilian jokes, points out, Lanza had originally called his collection of short peasant tales Storie di Nino Scardino. The writer Ardegno Soffici saw a similarity between Lanza s tales and a newly published collection of mimes by the 3 rd -century Greek poet Eronda published in The title is misleading, since the word mime refers to an actor who performs through bodily gestures. The association with Eronda s

15 Italian Bookshelf 491 work nevertheless remained, and Lanza agreed to use the title Mimi siciliani. The critic Salvatore DiMarco points out in La storia incompiuta di Francesco Lanza (1990), that this title is inappropriate, and Cipolla concurs with DiMarco but adds, While we could not change the title of this book, we thought that adding a subtitle would make the contents clearer for American audiences. Thus we added the subtitle, A Gallery of Sly and Rustic Tales, which is certainly more in tune with the book s contents (22). In the introduction Cipolla notes the strong oral tradition that exists in Sicily, and observes that Sicilians have delighted in hearing and repeating tales of foolish people. Younger generations aside, Cipolla claims that many Sicilians can rattle off jokes about unfaithful wives, cuckolded husbands, and other shenanigans. He points out that due to the sense of campanilismo, people from neighboring towns, that is to say, those who cannot hear your own parish church bells, are considered to be outsiders and are thus subject to ridicule and become the brunt of jokes. The fools and dummies always live in the next town over, and vices and shortcoming are often associated with the town. Even patron saints from another town can be disparaged as being not as effective as one s own, to wit, the ditty comparing Saint Calogero of Naro and San Calogero of Grigenti and Canicatti (12). Cipolla traces Lanza s collection of over a hundred little stories, rustic jokes and peasant misunderstandings to a vast oral repertoire, a tradition harking back to Boccaccio. Some of the titles of these little tales take their names from the inhabitants of the town. The clueless people from Piazza Armerina and Barrafranca are on the bottom of the rung of the ladder of fools. Some of the stories end with the joke on the Piazzese, who acts like the Piazzese he was. Enough said, as the listeners would know what could be expected from someone who lives in Piazza Armerina. Cipolla points out that despite the many shortcomings of the Sicilian people pointed out in these tales, avarice is not one of their vices, since the conflict is between the poor and the even poorer. Many of the tales have to do with extramarital antics between cumpari and cummari, the Sicilian words for the Italian compare and comare. This roughly translates to godfather and can mean a godfather to one s child, or one s best man at a wedding, or a confederate, a fellow or good buddy. Given that Sicilians are notoriously jealous, the infidelity jokes describe a world without logic where a man, rather than protecting his wife s honor, allows himself to be cuckolded. Such is the case of the man from Mazzarino, who s been told his wife s lover leaves a mark on her when they have sex. The wife proves this is not the case as she fornicates with her cumpari in front of her husband. Similar tales of husbands turning the other cheek or being relieved that someone else is happy to perform their marital duty happen to men from Mistretta and Nicosia. As Cipolla wisely warns us, the jokes themselves are funnier to the people who belong to the same social environment than they might be to outsiders (20). In other words, the majority

16 492 Annali d Italianistica 29 (2011) of the tales are inside jokes, the kind where you had to be there. Several of the jokes rely on puns, which are hard to translate, but Cipolla has done his best to translate the wordplay. Many of the stories reinforce how illiterate, poor and ignorant the peasants are, which may have been one of Lanza s purposes in his campaign to educate them. They are superstitious, and their religion, rather than being rooted in spirituality, is based on rituals that have no meaning for them. Thus there are jokes about swallowing Christ, that is to say, taking communion, and several instances from different towns in which a man who is portraying Christ on the cross during Good Friday reenactments has eaten too many beans or squash. The longest entry, The She-Hedgehog, which inspired the illustration on the book s cover, and describes how a Sicilian woman rebuffed a Calabrian s sexual advances by placing a skinned she-hedgehog over her privates, is the longest tale at two and a half pages. Most of the 107 tales are about a page or half a page long, or consist of a few lines. One example is The Man from Radussa, who went to confession. When the priest asks him how many persons in the most Holy Trinity, the man replies Are those folks from around these parts? (111). This collection of Sicilian jokes is the 18 th volume in the LEGAS Sicilian Studies Series, edited by Cipolla. Preserving and studying a culture s humor holds up a mirror to its values, and this collection gives the reader an insight into the oral tales Sicilians found amusing and passed down through generations. RoseAnna Mueller, Columbia College Chicago Suzanne Magnanini. Fairy-Tale Science: Monstrous Generation in the Tales of Straparola and Basile. Toronto: U of Toronto P, Pp. ix Francesco Straparola s Le piacevoli notti (Venice, 1550) and Giambattista Basile s Lo cunto de li cunti (Naples, ) are generally considered to be the earliest collections of fairy tales in European culture. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, these two texts have been subjected to critically divergent approaches and discussed within a philological, folkloric or a culturally elitist framework. Suzanne Magnanini s Fairy-Tale Science: Monstrous Generation in the Tales of Straparola and Basile is an interesting book. Distancing herself from pyschoanalytic and formalist methodologies which characterized so much of twentieth-century fairy-tale scholarship (8), Magnanini positions the fairy tale genre within a literary tradition blending popular and learned culture. She points out that in early modern Italian fairy tales monstrosity and the marvelous are recurrent themes, whereas the novella genre begun by Giovanni Boccaccio s Decameron has realistic qualities. Framing her study within the context of European scientific debates, Magninani

17 Italian Bookshelf 493 correctly argues that Straparola s and Basile s treatment of monstrosity and the marvelous in some of their tales was influenced by a contemporary scientific discourse which resulted in new theories and discoveries concerning nature and the human body. Focusing on the representation of the monstrous body, Magnanini argues that it came to function as a nexus where the literary fairy tale and the emerging New Science met in a mutually defining contiguity (6). Magnanini s aim is therefore to examine Le piacevoli notti and Lo cunto in the broad social-historical context of the discourse on the marvelous (6). Fairy-Tale Science is divided into seven chapters. In the first Magnanini argues that books on monstrosities circulating in early modern Italy were nonspecialized multidisciplinary texts that recognized Pliny and Aristotle as major sources for scientific study. Accordingly, men of letters like Straparola and Basile drew on scientific texts during their participation in contemporary debates on monstrosity. This debate encouraged a taste for collecting rarities including fake monsters which were assembled in museums of wonders (Wunderkabinette). Academic discourse on wonder and the marvelous also encouraged the circulation of associated literary texts, which Magnanini examines in order to demonstrate their role in shaping the debate on monstrosity that was to influence Straparola s and Basile s tales. Magnanini devotes two chapters to show that Straparola and Basile simultaneously recognize and struggle to overcome the stigma of the fairy tale by incorporating scientific theories of monstrous birth into meta-literary frame tales meant to masculinize the genre and prove its allegorical worth (47). In Straparola s work this strategy takes place through the character Antonio Molino s narration of the story of Filomena Salerno, a beautiful woman who suddenly falls ill with fever because of a painful mass growing in her pubic area. Surgeons cut the area, from which a penis emerges. Magnanini argues that Molino s story of Filomena s transformation is a literary discussion of an aspect of contemporary scientific debates on human sex organs linked to the Galenic theory of male heat. Moreover, she interprets Molino s claim that Filomena s story was a real event as a means for Straparola to associate male story telling of prodigious transformations with facts justified by scientific theories, in contrast to female narrations of monstrous generation which are relegated to mere fairy tales. Magnanini continues by arguing in chapter five that in Lo cunto s frame tale Basile utilizes scientific theories on the power of voglie materne (maternal cravings) to modify the fetus, as had been discussed by Hippocrates, Matteo Palmieri, Levinus Lemnius, Giambattista della Porta and Scipione Mercurio. In so doing Basile creates a framing narrative that ultimately functions to remove from the literary fairy tale the stigma formed during the sixteenth century that marked the genre as decorous only for young women and old crones (70). This process of masculinizing fairy tales is accentuated through Magnanini s interpretation of partorir l ingegno (to give birth to one s wit), a sentence used by Italian male authors, which she interprets as an assertion of their autonomous

18 494 Annali d Italianistica 29 (2011) masculine creativity expressed through what Magnanini implausibly regards as the use of their pen functioning as a penis. Next she analyzes Straparola s tale of the king Pig as a literary representation of bestiality, before turning to the representation of monstrosity in Basile s tale of Lo mercante. Finally, Magnanini analyses an ogre s generative flatulence as a literary representation of the scientific discourse on fertility. Magnanini s study of the monstrous in Straparola s and Basile s works explores an important topic in early modern Italian fairy tales, drawing upon a wealth of primary sources mainly related to the debate on monstrosity in an early modern Northern Italy. Even so, Magnanini s research on the seventeenthcentury Neapolitan milieu is, in this reviewer s opinion, not fully developed. A leading European centre for learning and scientific experimentation, early seventeenth-century Naples provided Basile s inspiration for writing Lo cunto. Naples was a vibrant city with flourishing intellectual Academies, whose position as leading philosophical and scientific centres of European learning had been established well before the foundation of the Neapolitan branch of the Lincei Academy (contrary to Magnanini s claims 159). On returning to Naples, Basile became a member or frequenter of several academies including the Oziosi, Incauti and Erranti, thereby participating in debates on science and the marvelous as well as establishing contacts with local scientists. Here Basile observed Ferrante Imperato s Wunderkabinette, saw paintings and engraved images of monstrous transformations, seven-headed hydras, monsters and basilisks all circulating in books on emblems, heraldry and encomiastic literature published at Naples. Examples include Giulio Cesare Capaccio s Delle imprese (1592) and Jusepe de Ribeira s Magdalena Ventura and her husband and son (a painting commissioned by the Viceroy Fernando Afán de Ribera y Enríquez, one of Basile s last patrons). The Neapolitan academic debate on science and the marvelous that influenced Basile s representation of monstrosity also encouraged the publication of books on medicine, alchemy, surgery and dissection, together with apothecary guides that analyzed the link between disease (both physical and mental), and bodily deformation. As part of a group of writers hired as organizers and narrators of religious feasts, public and courtly celebrations that took place regularly in Naples, Basile, together with other intellectuals, was familiar with seven-headed hydras and monstrous creatures displayed in palaces or along Naples s streets as pyrotechnic gigantic devices or as grotesque fantocci. For all that, Fairy-Tale Science nonetheless successfully achieves its main goal, namely, enhancing the debate on the role played by science, monstrosity and the marvelous in early modern Italian fairy tales. Thanks to Magnanini s study, a new area has been opened on a well-trodden field. Lorenza Gianfrancesco, British Library

19 Italian Bookshelf 495 Vincenzo Milione and Christine Gambino. Sì, parliamo italiano. Globalization of the Italian Culture in the United States. Calandra Institute Transactions. New York: John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Pp. 89. The volume is introduced by Anthony Tamburri, director of the Calandra Institute, who frames it as a timely contribution to the effort, led by many members of the Italian and Italian America community, to better understand the role of the Italian language and culture in the United States today. As Tamburri notes, the authors attempt a more accurate evaluation of the number of Italian speakers in the country against the background of a century-long evolution of the speaking, studying and teaching of Italian nationwide (9). Tamburri emphasizes the importance of such an enterprise within a more general movement to give greater visibility to our culture and to recognize the role of Italian as both a language of culture and an instrument of communication. These efforts have led to the institution of the Advanced Placement Italian exam (recently reinstated after having been terminated) and to the recognition by the Italian government and local organizations of the need for a greater involvement with the teaching of our language and, more generally, the spread of our culture in the United States. Tamburri underscores how the notable increase in enrollments at all levels of language teaching indicates the urgency of this task. In the introduction the authors specify the geographical area on which their analysis focuses: New York and the Tri-State area, which includes the greater New York metropolitan area, northern New Jersey, Long Island, Connecticut, and parts of eastern Pennsylvania. In the following section of the book they describe the sources of their study, which consist of data collected in different kinds of surveys: census data, the General Social Survey, and the American Community Survey. Census data refer to the year 2000 and American Community data collect results for The third source of data, the General Social Survey, annually collects socio-demographic and attitudinal data among a sample of respondents representing a cross-section of the population of the United States. This survey did not include questions on language before 2000 and that is why the data analyzed by Milione and Gambino only cover the years from 2000 to The authors also explain how fallacies in the way these data were collected make it difficult to estimate the real number of Italian speakers in the country. Both the decennial Census Survey and the American Community Survey only record people who have Italian as their first language, thus excluding respondents who may speak Italian but do not use it as their primary language. In addition, these surveys do not consider cases of respondents who speak more than two languages. Milione and Gambino analyze both trends in the population of Italian Americans in the New York and Tri-State area, and trends in the use of Italian at home. It is surprising to learn from their analysis that the percentage of Italian Americans, whose presence has decreased in New York and the Tri-State area,

20 496 Annali d Italianistica 29 (2011) has instead grown in the United States as a whole. This may be due to population movements from the north towards southern states, but also to the increased awareness and pride among Italian Americans who may be more willing to declare their ancestry. Data on language maintenance at home between 2000 and 2006 confirm the general trend to a declining use of Italian as the primary language, but again do not tell the whole story about Italian being spoken as a second or third language. Further statistics show that even though the population of Italian American ancestry has increased in the last six years, usage of Italian among the youth tends to decrease compared to the older generation. The latter trend is also present in the Tri-State area, thus confirming the need for an expansion of Italian language programs throughout the country. For New York, the data analysis shows that the population of Italian ancestry still constitutes a tightly knit community, but also that it is diminishing in size, given the exodus of young people towards the suburbs. Maintenance of Italian at home has declined in this area as well. The section titled Italian Speakers in the United States: A Broader Picture tries to fill the gap left by census data on the total number of speakers of Italian, beyond those who have it as a first language, analyzing the data from the General Social Survey. Such analysis reveals that more recent immigrants to the United States tend to maintain their L1 much more than members of previous generations of immigrants, and also that interest in Italian has spread among American communities. Another interesting point is that just one third of Italian speakers in the United States has Italian as its primary language in the home, thus the number of of Italian speakers estimated by Milione and Gambino is at least 2.8 million (two thirds more than the census 2006 estimation of 828,524). Finally, Milione and Gambino argue in this section that at least one third of the Italian speakers in the U.S. are not of Italian ancestry. In the last section, The Impact of School Instruction for Italian Language Speakers, the authors discuss the effect of the historical lack of opportunities for studying Italian in school on the number of speakers of Italian, hypothesizing that if such opportunities had been the same as for French and German, the number of Italian speakers among Americans would be much higher today. In the conclusions Milione and Gambino stress two complementary trends demonstrated in their data analysis: the general decline in speakers who learn Italian at home and the corresponding increase of speakers who learn Italian through the school system. Data on enrollment in Italian language classes at the high school and college levels confirm a substantial increase in interest for studying Italian among both Italian American and American students. These conclusions highlight the need for further research on the use of our language in the United States, but also the fallacies of research systems based on a view of multilingualism as an impediment rather than as a source of richness. This study by Milione and Gambino provides plenty of evidence to support the importance of the effort made by Italian American organizations together

Dr Mila Milani Comparatives and Superlatives Comparatives are particular forms of some adjectives and adverbs, used when making a comparison between two elements: Learning Spanish is easier than learning

L uomo è un piccolo mondo. Igor Zanti Curatore e critico d arte The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page. Each man is a little world The journey beyond our usual places inspired

Centre Number 2015 HIGHER SCHOOL CERTIFICATE EXAMINATION Student Number Italian Extension Written Examination Total marks 40 General Instructions Reading time 10 minutes Working time 1 hour and 50 minutes

1 2 3 Le cellule staminali dell embrione: cosa possono fare Embryonic stem cells are exciting because they can make all the different types of cell in the body scientists say these cells are pluripotent.

HOTEL SPADARI AL DUOMO via Spadari, 11 20123 Milano Tel: +39.02.72002371 Fax: +39.02.861184 e.mail: reservation@spadarihotel.com It all began with a small building in the heart of Milan that was in need

This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project to make the world s books discoverable online. It has

I Will Have Vengeance (Commisarrio Ricciardi Book 1) By Maurizio de Giovanni If searched for the book by Maurizio de Giovanni I Will Have Vengeance (Commisarrio Ricciardi Book 1) in pdf format, then you

Lesson 1 Gli Gnocchi Date N of students AIM OF THE LESSON: for the students to familiarise themselves with the language of cooking The following activities are based on "Communicative method" which encourages

Contesti Studente(ssa) 1 Lezione 2A 7 A che ora? (student text, p. 42) You and your partner each have two schedules. One shows your own activities. The other shows a partial list of your partner s activities,

The Online Collection of the Italian Society for Law and Literature http://www.lawandliterature.org/index.php?channel=papers ISLL - ITALIAN SOCIETY FOR LAW AND LITERATURE ISSN 2035-553X Submitting a Contribution

the creative point of view www.geomaticscube.com side B THE CREATIVE approach 03 Another point of view 04/05 Welcome to the unbelievable world 06/07 Interact easily with complexity 08/09 Create brand-new

No Images? Click here Weekly Newsletter 6th November 2015 Summary Dear Parents, We have many activities planned over the next few weeks leading to the winter break. However, I will start by the General

Lezione 1: Ciao! Prima di guardare A. Read the following descriptions of two young people. Then rewrite them as if they were introducing themselves. Example: Si chiama Sara. Non è italiana: è italoamericana.

copertina univ. 21 11-04-2005 16:30 Pagina 1 A State and its history in the volumes 1-20 (1993-1999) of the San Marino Center for Historical Studies The San Marino Centre for Historical Studies came into

Centre Number Student Number 2009 HIGHER SCHOOL CERTIFICATE EXAMINATION Italian Extension Written Examination Total marks 40 General Instructions Reading time 10 minutes Working time 1 hour and 50 minutes